BOISE — Preventing your pills from getting into the wrong hands is an important task; one that could have deadly consequences if ignored.
“It may be a friend, it may be a child, it may even be a child's friend who come in and maybe start taking medications, and they’re maybe "opioid-naive" meaning they’ve never taken a narcotic before, and they can accidentally overdose," said director of pharmacy operations Nikki Price.
According to the Centers for Disease Control, more than 60,000 children end up in the ER each year because of an accidental overdose. New this month, Albertsons pharmacy is stocking DisposeRx at their pharmacies across the country, which is a way to destroy your prescription pills right at home.
“If somebody gets a medication from us that’s an opioid or narcotic, so we’re talking about oxycodone, hydrocodone, Tylenol with codeine even, those all have opioids in them, we’ll offer it to them," said Price.
All you do is add water with the DisposeRx powder and shake it together, which creates a gelatinous form. That substance binds the active ingredients in DisposeRx to the active ingredients in the medication, which makes the pills unusable and unable to produce what could be “desired effects” for someone addicted to opioids.
"Not the ultimate solution by any means but its again one of many solutions that need to be implemented," said Price.
DisposeRx costs $1.25 but must be purchased through a pharmacist.
